I Was Stranded on a Deserted Island with a Beautiful Classmate - Chapter 43

While enjoying fishing, I asked about Amane.

“Hmm, you want to know about me? I’m not sure where to start. Why don’t you lead with a question, Hayasaka-kun?”

“Alright. What’s your favorite food, Amane?”

“Chocolate. It’s the best.”

“And your least favorite food?”

“Umeboshi. I can’t handle sour things…Wait, this isn’t what I was expecting!”

Amane pouted, clearly wanting me to ask something else. Like a child. Well, I guess my questions were a bit childish too.

“But it’s hard to think of something all of a sudden.”

“You can ask me anything, though.”

“Oh? Then, how about your measurements?”

“Ah…from the top: 84, 51…Wait, why are you making me say this!? It’s so embarrassing!”

Amane flailed her hands and her face turned bright red. Kinda cute.

But since she said I could ask anything, I focused on fishing again, and Amane bashfully started playfully hitting me.

“Sorry, but at least now I know another one of your secrets.”

“Ugh, trying to find out a girl’s measurements…”

“It’s good that it’s me you told. I can keep a secret.”

“It’s absolutely a secret! I won’t forgive any information leaks!”

“Don’t worry. After all, I’m the only one who knows your secret. Doesn’t that make it special?”

I caught another squid. Looks like it’s a squid festival today. Maybe we’ll hold a grilled squid party later.

“That’s true. Yeah, let’s get to know each other even better.”

“Of course. Oh, another squid.”

Things were going well. At this rate, we wouldn’t have to worry about food today. We’d need plenty of it, especially with more people joining us. We’d all have to work together.

Just then, Chitose, who had been out searching for items, returned.

“Hayasaka-kun! Amane-san!”

“Oh, you’re back, Chitose. Did you find anything?”

“Yes! I found a blue, transparent, squishy thing over there. It’s a strange object! It might be a UMA!”

Ah, a “UMA.” That’s short for Unidentified Mysterious Animal. It’s a term often used in old paranormal TV shows. Like for Chupacabras or Bigfoot.

No way. If something that crazy were on this island, it’d be like Higanjima. And that would be terrifying—I don’t think I could survive that.

Anyway, Amane and I headed over to the site.

We got there in less than a minute.

“This is it…Oh, this transparent thing is…”

“What is it?! Is it an alien? It’s an alien, right?!”

Chitose’s eyes sparkled with excitement, but—no, this isn’t an alien. It’s a perfectly normal Earth creature.

“Hey, Hayasaka-kun! I’ve never seen anything like this transparent thing before! It’s slightly blue—isn’t this a huge discovery?!”

Even Amane was excited! So, she’d never seen this before.

“You two, this is a ‘Portuguese man o’ war.'”

“Portuguese man o’ war?!”

Both of them were shocked by the unfamiliar name.

“It’s a jellyfish. And it’s a poisonous one.”

“A poisonous jellyfish?!”

They were surprised again. Understandably.

“Have you heard of the electric jellyfish? If this stings you, it causes extreme pain. It can even lead to respiratory failure. In the worst cases, it can be fatal.”

“…”

Naturally, both of them turned pale. Especially Chitose, who had been hoping it was an alien—she looked absolutely crushed. Yeah, I get it.

“Sometimes they get washed ashore by typhoons. It’s probably one of those. Whatever you do, don’t touch it.”

“A poisonous jellyfish…?”

“Don’t let it get you down, Chitose. The ocean’s full of dangers, and many species carry poison.”

“Why do they even have poison?”

“Well, it’s because they don’t want to be eaten.”

Many insects and plants have poison to survive. It would be great if humans had poison too—we could protect ourselves better.

We walked away, careful not to step on the Portuguese man o’ war.

This place is dangerous. We should head back.

We’d caught a good number of squids. Seven in total, which should be enough. If we split them in half, there should be no problem with meals.

I stored the squids we caught in a Styrofoam box we found washed up on the shore.

＊　＊　＊

We returned to the base.

It looked like each team had already started moving, reinforcing the area around the base. Wow, when did they bring in so many logs?

It almost looked like a construction site.

The girls were sweating while building fences. I should help too.

“I’m back, Kitakami-san.”

“Welcome back, Tetsu-kun. Oh, squid, I see.”

“Yeah, we caught a lot. Looks like we’ll be having grilled squid for lunch.”

“That’s wonderful. We were just about out of food.”

“Perfect timing, then. I’ll leave the cooking to you…I’ll help with the fence. We could use a man’s strength.”

“That would be very helpful. Yaegashi-san and the others working on weapons have been struggling a bit with that.”

It didn’t seem to be going well. I guess I’ll have to step in and teach them.

“I’ll go check on them.”

“Alright. I’ll leave it to you.”

I left the squids with Kitakami and joined Amane and Chitose to meet up with Yaegashi, Hokkii, and Riko, the members of the ‘Weapon and Trap Construction Team.’

“How’s it going, Yaegashi-san?”

“Hayasaka-kun…Hmm, I tried sharpening the logs into spears. Does this look okay?”

She showed me, and it was a perfect spear. If we lined them up, we could make a ‘spear fence.’

“Yeah, that looks great. You did a good job sharpening it.”

“I used a shovel and the saw on my multitool to shave it down. It felt like I was sharpening a pencil.”

“But it’s taking quite a bit of time. Let me handle this.”

“Really? That would be a huge help.”

If we had better tools, we could work more efficiently, but we only had a small saw from the multitool and a shovel from Riko’s supplies.

Still, having tools at all is better than nothing.

We’ll just have to keep at it steadily!

For now, let’s keep fortifying the area around the cave.